The microfluidics technology is typically identified by employing devices having one or more channels with at least one dimension less than 1 millimeter and minute amounts of fluids, typically in the order of nano- and pico-liters.
Microfluidics is used in various fields, such as chemical and biological reactions and analysis or ink-jet nozzles fabrication.
Microfluidics technologies enable to develop small, cost effective and efficient systems, such as a lab-on-a-chip where entire complex chemical management and analysis systems can be created in a microfluidic chip and interfaced with, for example, electronics and optical detection systems.
Applying microfluidics to visualize microscopic objects was disclosed for example, in US applications 2005/0271548 or 2007/207061 to Yang et al., and a blood cytometer was described, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 6,097,485 to Lievan or U.S. Pat. No. 6,959,618 to Larsen. U.S. Pat. No. 7,312,085 to Hou-Pu et al. discloses apparatus, methods and kits for microfluidic manipulation and/or detection of particles such as cells and/or beads.
An apparatus and methods using a fluid having viscoelastic properties such that infusing a fluidic suspension of particles in a microchannel increases the concentration of the particles in a focus region inside the microchannel (‘viscoelastic focusing’) is disclosed in A. M. Leshansky, A. Bransky, N. Korin, and U. Dinnar, Tunable Nonlinear Viscoelastic “Focusing” in a Microfluidic Device, Phys. Rev. Lett. 98, 234501 (2007) and in PCT application WO2008/149365 of which a co-inventor (Bransky) is the inventor of the present invention.